09/10/2013

Tuesday morning, September 11, Marla Smith will appear on the Today Show, talking about her work bringing clean drinking water and sanitation to Ethiopia, Bangladesh and other places around the globe. Her network television appearance follows a citation by SELF Magazine as a Woman Doing Good, along with fellow honorees Shakira, and Padma Lakshmi. An excerpt follows below, or read the full story by picking up the magazine on your newsstand. Read my How Does She Do It? story here, and better yet, support the work of Water 1st by making a contribution here.

Marla Smith-Nilson, a Woman Doing Good, helps communities access clean drinking water through Water 1st. "If you give people water," she says, "it transforms their lives."

During a family trip to northern Mexico when she was 12, Marla Smith-Nilson was water-skiing on a lake when she saw a local girl fill a container with lake water, strap it to her back and head off. "It seemed so wrong," Smith-Nilson says. "My life was completely different just because I was lucky enough to be born 70 miles north." Today, around a billion people lack access to clean drinking water, and Smith-Nilson, 44, a civil engineer and founder of Water 1st, is working on lowering that number by helping communities in Ethiopia, Honduras, Bangladesh and India drill wells or tap mountain springs. "I want every person to have what we take for granted: clean water," she says. "It's totally possible in my lifetime."

In addition to Marla’s recognition…

Kathleen Flenniken earned one of the six 2013 Washington Book Awards for her volume of poetry, Plume. Read her How Does She Do It? story by scrolling down the page. You can purchase her book by clicking the Amazon ad to your right.

08/07/2013

Kathleen Flenniken turned my perception of poetry upside down when she offered the attribute of convenience. “You have time to write poems when you have small children. You have little bits of time and poems feel like they’re a better match for that,” she described, reflecting back on how her pursuit of this craft fit within the daily chaos of young motherhood.

When I was at that stage, I would have had “take a shower”, or “clean away the minefield of plastic toys” filling that bit of time. Poetry -- not the reading of and certainly not the writing of it -- would not have seemed like something to wedge between diaper changes and playground excursions. I always harbored the idea that poems required ponderous hours of contemplation by the reader; which by extension would require thousands more for the writer. But Kathleen, enrolled as she was in an evening poetry writing course and with young children at home, grabbed the space to spin bursts of inspiration into analogies and metaphors and put them to paper.

Before the birth of her second child, Kathleen spent her working hours as a civil engineer. Stationed at the Hanford Nuclear site, the archeology of this nation’s race to atomic weaponry, she monitored groundwater for radioactive contamination. Her job was the natural outgrowth of a BA in Engineering from Washington State University, followed by an MA in the same field from UW.

The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex on the Columbia River in Eastern Washington. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, and in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki Japan. - Wikipedia

The B Reactor at Hanford from The Seattle Times

That she would find herself working at Hanford was also a natural fit, having grown up in nearby Richland, Washington, where the nuclear site has been the town’s major industry. Her father was a PhD scientist working at Hanford during its heyday. Looking back she admits, “Engineering was never a really great match for me. I think I went into it in part because I wanted to please my dad, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I wanted to do architecture for a while, but didn’t have the guts to follow through. I was very worried about being rejected in those days.”

When her childcare provider moved away, Kathleen had a reason to put her engineering practice aside. Looking for something to balance her newfound stay-at-home-mother status she perused the Experimental College course catalog. After trying classes in handwriting analysis and jazz improvisation, she chose an evening poetry writing class.

“From my very first class I took it seriously. It didn’t feel like just a night class. I thought, ‘wow! I really want to do this!’ Right away, I was trying to be conscientious and working on it as hard as I could.”

After finishing that class, she took it again. And again. She developed a peer group of poets and found a mentor in her teacher. And more and more of those bursts of time got filled with writing.

“I don’t know, I think our passions find us in some way. It just kind of hit me on the head when I was ready for it. Growing up I played piano, but I never wanted to practice. I don’t mind practicing at poetry. Everything about it is something I enjoy. I love the drafts, I love the revisions, I love reading it, I love talking about it. I don’t even mind sending work out. I don’t love being rejected – maybe that’s one thing. But there was never that feeling of, ugh, I don’t want to practice.”

This was back in the days when Washington State did not have a Poet Laureate, not that Kathleen would have given it much thought. It would be several years before she knew that such a position could exist, her first awareness coming much later, when she learned that Rita Dove was the Poet Laureate of the United States.

Fast forward through two published volumes of works and decades of practice later, Kathleen Flenniken became Washington State’s Poet Laureate in 2012, having been chosen for the work she had already produced and for the agenda of poetry literacy she proposed to bring to people throughout this state.

From engineer to poet, it was a transition that this mother of three embraces as perfectly natural. If natural sums up Kathleen’s life path it also describes her personality. Cuddling a cup of tea at my dining room table, words and laughter spill from her without restraint. If poets are supposed to be pompous and pedantic, Kathleen did not get the memo. The character she evinces before me is evident in her poems. Straightforward, accessible, and, well, natural.

From Kathleen’s poem, “The Beauty of the Curve”, excerpted from Famous (University of Nebraska Press, 2006)

“I think my style as a write is quite pared down. I don’t write ornate sentences or anything of that sort; it’s a kind of clean, lined style. Probably influenced by the science writing that I did for many years.”

More than a decade after her first poetry class, Kathleen embarked on a project that returned her to her roots. Armed with distance and knowledge, she turned her craft on the dark secrets of the Hanford Nuclear site and the culture it engendered in her home town. In an interview with Dick Gordon for The Story, on American Public Media, Kathleen talks about facing -- and embracing -- the truths that touched every aspect of her childhood. (Listen to the full interview here. You’ll hear Kathleen’s wonderful voice talking of her experience growing up in Richland and reading some of her poems aloud).

Her second volume of poetry, Plume, (University of Washington Press, 2012), is “a whole book of poems about Hanford. I wanted to write about a subject. And for me that’s the most dangerous, most difficult writing I can do. Writing towards a subject is difficult to come off as a real poem because It often comes off as an assignment or a little mini essay. It doesn’t always have the right kind of turn that I’m looking for in a poem. I wrote a lot of those poems that did not go into the book.”

During the Cold War, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the 60,000 weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Many of the early safety procedures and waste disposal practices were inadequate, and government documents have since confirmed that Hanford’s operations released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air and the Columbia River, which still threaten the health of residents and ecosystems.

The Hanford site represents two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste by volume. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. - Wikipedia

By its reviews, Plume succeeded. It has been hailed as: "Not only an education about Washington State and its role in the Nuclear Age but of an awakening in the American public as well as the poet herself to the peculiar dangers of invisible poisons and of trusting too much the authorities of science and government." (Jeannine Hall Gailey, The Rumpus, May 2012)

Included in this volume are pieces coming to terms with the death of her good friend Carolyn’s father, who was given a diagnosis when he was in his 50‘s of “a chromosomal deviation consistent with people in Hiroshima. But doctors in Hanford attributed his illness to farm chemicals.” Unlike Kathleen’s father, Carolyn’s dad was among those who did the plant’s physical work, which put them in close proximity to radioactive elements.

“Some people think that poetry shouldn’t be helpful. Some think poems should be art for art sake -- and I do believe they need to be artful to work, but I also think they can be more than that. I think they can ask hard questions. Not necessarily provide answers, but I think they can be a stepping off place for a conversation, for thinking.”

I ask her to talk about one of her poems that she thinks might describe this aspect of helpfulness, but she demurs. “That makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable. Because, if it falls short for someone, I wouldn’t want to be saying, oh, this is such a great poem I wrote.” But after some prodding, she relents.

“There’s a a poem in Plume called Rattlesnake Mountain. On its surface it’s a description of a landmark mountain on the outskirts of Richland, on the perimeter of the Hanford Nuclear site. The poem is about the mountain, but it’s also about how we got there; Richland, the history, the Manhattan Project. How we saw this place as empty and ugly, which allowed us to savage it. When I grew up I used to think it was ugly too. I thought we lived in an ugly landscape. And now, when I look at it I see it’s very beautiful. I can finally see how it’s a sacred place that we have fouled. I’ve had people tell me that the poem matters to them. Because they both love the place but they feel shame about the environmental calamity there, and the poem reflects both.”

Writing about Hanford, Kathleen saw her poems help tell a story that was important to many people, which has provoked her to keep moving in that direction. Today, she says, “I find myself writing about America; my confusion about where we are as a country. I’m writing those poems because I need to do it for myself, but I think if I’m successful they will be helpful for other people. The more I write the more ambitious I get for my writing.”

Getting to the point of success in poetry Kathleen enjoys now was a long process with much work and many sacrifices along the way. One of those being her well-paying engineering career. She admits, that decision wasn’t without its burdens. “Oh yes, there was a lot of guilt. I remember one of my advisors in my engineering Masters program sitting me down and asking, ‘you’re not one of those women who get a Masters who gives it up to have babies and never uses it?’ And I was like, ‘oh no!’ I can’t tell you how many times that conversation came up in my mind when I was in that shifting period.”

I reminded her of conversations we had many years back in the days I was coaching our daughters’ basketball team, my initial introduction to Kathleen and her family. That was when Kathleen was knitting together small writing contracts. I asked her about her transition from night class student to professional poet.

“Now, that’s the really hard part. Taking your work seriously is one thing and really applying yourself is one thing; saying in public that you’re a poet, now that’s a really difficult thing to do. And for me it came in stages, through getting paid, which means teaching. I found my way as a teaching artist, first through Washington State Arts Commission, their artists roster, and then Writers in the Schools, and then through organizations like Jack Straw. I feel conventional in that sense that I had to get paid to do the work to be able to call myself a writer. Once I did have checks coming in, small checks, really small checks, it was easier for me to call myself a poet.”

And then, with new focus, Kathleen sits up straight to make a point. “I should mention too my husband, who is very supportive through all of this. My husband is quite remarkable. He’s very open to letting me be who I want to be, and he always has been. When we first met I was a bit frustrated because it seemed that he wasn’t hands-on enough. I had some kernel of old-fashioned ideas about what a relationship should be, and thank God, he wasn’t like that. He’s the kind who hangs on loosely. So, that’s really been helpful, to allow me to find my way.”

When I ask Kathleen to define that phrase, “hangs on loosely”, she seems pleased and surprised that the phrase escaped her lips. “It’s from some old pop song -- horrible old pop song. I don’t even remember it.”

Interesting, I point out, that she would draw from song lyrics, which are a form of poetry. “Well, that’s why we have poems in our society! They fulfill a purpose. They are there when you need them. When I say, ‘hanging on loosely’ -- I mean, his ego and his happiness are not tied up in what I do, they are tied up the way we care for each other and our family. I let go of a fairly lucrative career choice for one that is much less so, but he was fine with that because I was happier.”

As well as her husband, Kathleen’s children have also been very supportive of her pursuit.

“I know that they are proud of me. This is something they have had to sacrifice for because I am away a lot. My daughter, especially. I bought ballet tickets for us and I haven’t been able to go to a single ballet. She’s gone with friends, twice with her dad. He sort of got dragged along but it turns out he’s enjoying it! It’s nice for them that they have this, but that wasn’t the intention. I was supposed to go with her. I know she’s disappointed that I didn’t go to any of them, but she’s a good sport about it. And my family knows it’s not forever. So I’m lucky. Having said that, they can only tolerate so much poetry talk before they glaze over. Yeah, they keep me humble.”

As someone who reads mountains but almost never poetry, I asked Kathleen to put on her Poet Laureate hat and advise me on becoming a poetry reader. “I think a great way to find voices that speak to you is to check out anthologies. A collection with of a lot of voices. It’s guaranteed there will be many poems there that you will not like, but just turn the page and keep reading. And try something else. Even if you’re just reading half a poem, keep at it. If you find one just one poet who speaks to you, find a book of that poet’s work and read the book. And maybe you’ll find that poet leads you to another poet. And that’s what takes you in the door.

“Poetry is like music. You’ll not like at least as many poems as you do, probably more. You just need to give yourself a chance to find the ones that speak to you. It’s not as easy as dialing the radio around. You have to be more proactive about it.”

And what separates poetry from other literary forms? After admitting that as Poet Laureate she feels she should have a better answer to this question she responds. “Well, it does have the song quality. So distilled. And it’s so much about sound and image. Poems don’t have to be burdened by stories. They go back into our history so far -- that idea of people sitting around the fire, telling stories through poems because there’s the rhythm that helps you remember them. I think poems need to work out loud to really be poems.”

Finishing up this story, I have a couple minutes before making dinner. I think I’ll read a poem.

The poet is shown here, overlaid by her own poem, “Natural History”

PHOTO CREDIT: Hayley Young (Seattle Magazine)

Kathleen Flenniken’s Not-So-Secrets for How She Does It?

On the demands of the job of Poet Laureate:

“Basically it’s a full time job. It’s more than I’ve ever worked since I’ve had children. It bleeds over my entire day. I’m working all day long; after dinner, I’m working in the evening.

“There are lots of things I can’t really pursue right now. The house is a mess. Floors need to be refinished. I look forward to having some time to buy some new lights for the dining room. Some of those things that I love to do.

Despite that, “I try to enjoy everything I do as much as I can. Part of that is knowing it’s only two years. It’s like an adventure, like a vacation. You’re accumulating experiences and you can think about them later when it’s snowing outside.

“I’ve learned how to let go of my mistakes. I used to hang onto them. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and punish myself severely for some stupid thing I said, or a missed opportunity. I try not to do that any more. I move on to the next thing. I let go. I let go of my accidents, and try to look forward to the next opportunity.”

On the importance of friends and mentors in guiding her transition from engineer to poet:

“It’s no accident that I had to make a new set of friends when I became a poet. You surround yourself with people who understand that world. My new friends make me feel comfortable with my choices.

“I’ve had mentors and they’ve have mattered immensely to me. That’s been a real source of comfort and joy.

“I have a wonderful friend who has been my mentor. When I was 4 or 5 years into my writing I decided I wanted to go to the next level, so I found a poet. I had one of her books that I loved, and I found her on-line and contacted her to see if she would take on a private student. She has been there every step of the way ever since. And even though I’m at the stage where I shouldn’t need to have someone tell me it’s ok, if there were one person I would need to say it’s ok, it’s Sharon. I ended up getting a Masters in Creative Writing from PLU and she was my thesis advisor. She said, you’re already doing the work, so why not get the degree, so I decided to do it.

On knowing whether a poem is finished:

“One thing is sitting with it for a while. I have a fairly bad habit of thinking after I’ve finished the draft of a poem -- oh, this is fantastic! This is wonderful! Then coming back to it a few days later and realizing, this isn’t wonderful at all. So the first step is incubator, let it sit for a while.

“Another is sending it out and see if it’s rejected. When you open the results and see it was rejected, yes you’re disappointed, but there’s that 5 minute period where you can see the poem with different eyes. And that’s often a gift. Sometimes that helps you locate the problems. Maybe helps you find a solution to the problem. Or maybe you realize, this piece isn’t as good as you thought it was.”

What has Kathleen read recently?

“I’ve been asked to write a lot of blurbs. And of course, when you write a blurb, you have to read the book very carefully. You have to read it a couple times with great care. I’ve been reading with a lot of intentionality. Whereas it would be fun to read a fun book, like last summer I read, Financial Lives of the Poets, which was just a fun book, that made me laugh. It’s by Jess Walters. He’s a Spokane author, he’s great, he’s fantastic.”

Who Should I Interview Next?

Executive Director of Jack Straw -- Joan Rabinowitz . She built the organization into an arts and cultural center; financially in the black; they own their own building; they do all sorts of wonderful work across lots of cultural boundaries. She is an amazing collaborator. Works with all sorts of other organizations. She’s somebody who keeps going. Really smart and fun. She’d be great. They just won a Mayor’s arts award. Very accomplished.

Donna Moodie, one of my first profiles, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $75,000 to launch a new product: Miss Marjorie’s Steel Drum Plantains.

I’ve been hearing about Kickstarter campaigns for a while and figured this was a great opportunity to give it a try. I know Donna hopes you will, too. Click on to her Kickstarter site here, and watch the video featuring Donna’s son along with a cameo appearance by Stephanie Ellis Smith, whose story you can also read on How Does She Do It?

Here is a message from Donna:

It takes a village!

It's time to take it up a notch! I am reaching out to you to ask for a little assistance with my Kickstarter Campaign to create a retail version of Miss Marjorie's Steel Drum Plantains (our signature appetizer). If you are unaware of Kickstarter, it's this awesome Crowd Funding Program that allows entrepreneurs (that's me!) to ask their community (that's you!) to support them in an entrepreneurial endeavor (that's bringing the beloved Plantain from my restaurant to your table!). The catch? There isn't one, really. I can only keep the funds if my campaign reaches its goal. And most successful campaigns go somewhat viral (that means friends and colleagues continually reach out to their communities on behalf of the campaign). So I am asking you to take a look at my Campaign, and tell your friends, colleagues and family. It works very much like NPR and current Political Campaigns…no amount is too small! It's not what you give, it's THAT you give. Your support would mean a lot to me! And thanks for jumping on board early!

The next update is certainly of a different tenor.

Melissa Erickson, the former University of Washington and pro basketball player battling ALS, passed away on June 5. I learned of her passing while out of town and was sad not to be able to attend the service, which I pictured as being full of the spirit and joy of Mo. You can read the news here.

Life is on the move. Let me hear what’s moving in your life and who you hope I’ll interview next.

03/21/2013

I had hoped to post a two-part story of Sister Charlayne Brown, SNJM, following four interviews and a great deal of writing. Alas, at the last minute, Sister Char just wasn’t able to do it. She didn’t feel comfortable having a story about her life accessible to anyone and everyone on the internet. So we pulled the plug.

Yes, I’m disappointed, but it would be far worse for all involved if the story was posted and then she had misgivings.

In the process of researching for her story, I did come upon a great deal of information that speaks to the changing role of nuns in today’s American Catholic Church. Following a brief introduction of Sister Char, there follow two profiles of interesting Sisters from Charlayne’s congregation. And following these, some perspective on the Vatican’s recent crackdown on the LWCR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious).

I may try to find another Sister to write about. But in the meantime, I welcome your suggestions of other women whose stories should be told. Please send me your ideas in the comment box that follows this article.

My friend, Sister Charlayne Brown

It has been years since Sister Charlyne Brown, SNJM, stood at her father’s hospital bed dressed in her habit made of “yards and yards of black wool serge. In Hawaii. It’s hot there!” In the many years since that day, more than her habit has changed. The Church itself has swung like a pendulum, back and forth from before and after Vatican II. So has the meaning to her of the vows she took, 46 years ago, providing more significance to the terms of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.

Today at age 71, her black habit and coif have been replaced with a comfortable sweat suit and sneakers -- the unofficial “uniform” of many students at Holy Names Academy high school where Sister Char works part-time as Service Coordinator and Assistant for Campus Ministries.

The oldest, continuously operating school in Washington State, Holy Names Academy has been educating young women for 132 years in the tradition of Sister Mary Rose DuRocheur, who founded the congregation in Montreal in 1844. In addition to its ongoing mission of education for women and girls are the core values of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary (SNJM), which include dedication to justice, and service to people who are poor and marginalized.

Stories of two SNJM Sisters:

Meet Janet Walton, SNJM

Professor of Worship, Union Theological Seminary, NYC

For me, making the decision to join the SNJM community—and staying here for over 50 years, is all about making 'connections.'

My connection to the community is driven by deep friendships —and my commitment to social justice. The community helps me live as justly as I can in this world, and makes it possible for me to become involved in important world issues. That's why, for example, I participate in the Congregational Justice and Peace Committee. The committee makes recommendations about how we can become involved in actions intended to create a more just world. To date, the committee has focused on the Congregation's corporate stands: anti-trafficking and water as a basic human right. We are currently developing a recommendation around immigration issues.

'For Sisters of the Holy Names, teaching is about more than running good schools—it's also about training students to be good citizens of the world.'

I am a grad school teacher, but I also work on the streets and on the margins of society. My students at Union Theological Seminary started a program in the 1980s called Bridges, which connected the wealthy population of Summit, NJ, with the homeless population of New York City. I went out with them on this work. Our goal was not just to bring food and clothes, but to get to know them as human beings. The people who live in boxes are my teachers, too.

Meet Lois MacGillivray, SNJM

"The Sisters of the Holy Names stood out. They were always their own unique selves—funny, wise, and full of faith."

Of course, my teachers at Ramona gave me more than lessons—they gave me the gift of themselves. In an era of 'cookie-cutter' Sisters, the Sisters of the Holy Names stood out. They were always their unique selves—funny, wise, and full of faith. Even back then when relationships were so structured, Holy Names Sisters were their own human, beautiful selves—that's what made them so attractive to me and other students. They knew how to be totally present to their students, so that even when they wore habits they seemed approachable.

One day when I was a freshman doing my homework, it came to me that God was calling me to be a Sister. I thought about other communities, but the Holy Names Sisters were the ones that I knew and admired. And, since I knew they were great teachers—and that's what I wanted to be—the SNJM community was a perfect fit for me. So, one step after another, I worked my way to my senior year, and asked if I could enter. I graduated in June and entered the community in July at Los Gatos.

In 1967, our Provincial Superior, Sr. William Marie, called me in to her office and told me that I was going to graduate school to prepare for a life of applied research. At the time, she and other members of the Conference of Major Superiors of Women (a forerunner of LCWR) were engaged in conversations about how secular social science publications were critical of religion as an obstacle to human development. Since not many Sisters were working in social science, I was intentionally prepared to contribute to the conversation.

My early work was for the National Science Foundation, studying the effectiveness of municipal services in U.S. cities during the "stagflation" of the 1970s. The research institute I worked for also initiated economic and social development projects and I helped to administer those in Africa. I returned to California to become president of Holy Names College (now University) in 1982 and co-led the educational development component of the University-Metropolitan Forum to improve the economic prospects of the City of Oakland.

In the last five years, I have been a member of a research team assessing the effectiveness of programs to prepare children from birth to five for school, preparing schools to be ready for children who are fragile learners, supporting horizontal philanthropy (the ways that poor communities take care of each other), reducing childhood obesity and reducing recidivism among NC juvenile offenders.

Much has changed since I entered the community. The more relaxed, less formal manner that initially attracted me to the Sisters of the Holy Names—has become more pronounced and acceptable. I'm very proud of the ministry work our Sisters do. They've always been thoughtful and prepared. They take their work seriously, but they don't take themselves too seriously.

While recognizing the valuable contributions of Sisters to the Catholic Church, the Doctrinal Assessment takes issue with the organization for statements made by individual nuns that were not renounced by LCWR. It additionally criticizes “LCWR Officers, protesting the Holy See’s actions regarding the question of women’s ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry to homosexual persons.” In addition, “The Cardinal noted a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith in some of the programs and presentations sponsored by the LCWR.”

(Sister Pat Farrell in the parish of Cristo Obrero in Arica, Chile about 1984. RNS photo courtesy Sisters of St. Francis).

Though she is at the center of one of the biggest crises in the Catholic Church today, Sister Pat Farrell is loath to talk about herself, and certainly not in any way that would make her a focus of the looming showdown between the Vatican and American nuns.

To be sure, Farrell has spoken publicly and with quiet clarity about why the organization she heads, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, rejects Rome's plans to take control of the umbrella group that represents most of the 57,000 nuns in the U.S.

In announcing its proposed takeover last April, the Vatican accused the nuns of embracing a "radical feminism" that questions church teachings and focuses too much on social justice causes. Farrell says the American sisters are simply doing what the gospel requires, often speaking on behalf of so many in the church who have no one else to advocate for them.

# # #

Finally, if you need any more reasons to toss aside lingering memories of your strict knuckle-rapping elementary Catholic school teacher, here’s a moving tribute to the significance many nuns have in the lives of people today.

03/12/2013

With all the focus being given to the selection of a new pope – pundits handicapping the chances of various Cardinals like ponies at the starting gates – this seems like a good time to resurrect my web site. It has been living for quite some time in that black hole of spam. I spend so much time deleting scintillating comments at the end of my pieces with authors bearing names such as “Cheap Cialis at Home” and “Pornographic Online Casinos” that I haven’t had much energy – or time – to do any real writing.

While I haven’t been posting, I have been interviewing and interviewing. I hope to have a two-part piece posted soon, the result of many conversations with Sister Charlayne Brown, a woman who 46 years ago took her vows and joined the Sisters of the Holy Names. I figure if my web site attempts to tell the spectrum of women’s lives and the choices they make in leading them, then including a nun in the canon would be essential.

The Soeurs Nomees Jesus et Marie then…

It has been a wonderfully rewarding several months spent over many coffees getting to the point of writing Sister Char’s story. Naively I started this process thinking that someone who made a decision of that magnitude would be reflecting on it with regularity. But Sister or not, Charlayne is like many of the women I’ve written about – unaccustomed yet inspired by the opportunity to look back at the milestones in her life to see the connections. But living a life obedient to a higher calling, she has similarly been careful to keep our conversations within an acceptable boundary, a boundary I’m committed to respect. So the going has been more measured and has taken a good bit more time.

Hopefully I’ll have something up before too long. Sister Char and I look forward to reading your comments once it’s up. If you’re a subscriber to the site, you’ll get the post in your in-box. Saves the effort of scanning the horizon for white smoke.